May 2020 - Parks & Recreation - 42

JULIAN AGYEMAN

[people] in Brazil, a capitalist nation, that imposed a food security
policy, which even today - given
successive administrations - [is]
still operating and is still the envy
of the world, and fulfills many of
the goals of what's called the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact.
These examples were where social justice and equity were at the
core. They were not afterthoughts.
It wasn't, " let's get the economics
right, let's get the environmental
bits right, and oh, it would be great
if, on a second level, we could improve social equity and justice. "

In parks and public spaces,
how do we get people to talk
across diﬀerence? How do we
have neighbors becoming real
neighbors rather than strangers?
I think parks and public spaces
have a real role in that, in terms
of that possibility of contact.
Going back to the food policy,
[Brazil] built this food security platform in the early '90s on the basis
of social justice, the Brazilian right
to food, which is enshrined in the
constitution, and food with dignity.
And, I think this is really important, especially in these COVID-19
days, we need to reintroduce words
into public policy that are very human - like dignity, empathy, altruism. These are words that maybe
we [once] thought about as public
policymakers, but I want them to
come back into our lexicon. We
need to make public policy that is
dignified, altruistic, that is just, and
that bears the signs of empathy.
Stratton: It's interesting to think
about your Curitiba example,
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that idea of having a vision of
" let's have people move around
and get access to where they
need to be. " It wasn't, " oh, let's
ﬁx this narrow little problem. "
Agyeman: Nobody remembers the
brilliant technical urban planner,
but we all remember the visionaries like Ebenezer Howard, Jane Jacobs, Jaime Lerner. We all remember them because they translated a
vision into practice.
If you look at places like Copenhagen, they took a dream from the
early '60s and incrementally every
year, they increased the amount
of pedestrian space, increased
the number of parks, increased
the number of people cycling
and walking to work. And, they
have a very pleasant city today
[as a result of] urban planning. In
downtown Copenhagen, there's
a zoning regulation that building
frontages must be 75 percent glass,
because they want interaction in
the social realm. There are all of
these very clever ideas. They don't
want enclosures; they want the
commons. Cities are shared spaces, and we need to think of the
urban commons as the network
of spaces, places, streets - of
places where people are and can be
human beings.
And, let's not forget the fabulous example of Superkilen Park
in the Norrebro district [of Copenhagen]. Superkilen is a linear park
[that has] a very heavily immigrant
neighborhood. The city and the
design firm looked at it and asked:
" How do we try and make this a
culturally inclusive space? " One of
the ideas was to ask the community about what artifacts they would
like to see. So, you walk through
this space and you see everything
from bollards, which were painted
with the flag of Ghana, West Afri-

ca, benches from Iran and Mexico,
and I saw one of these poles with
a bull on the top from Spain. The
idea of asking people what kind
of spaces they want - in a sense,
Superkilen is a co-production between the city, the design firm and
the community.
In parks and public spaces, how
do we get people to talk across
difference? How do we have
neighbors becoming real neighbors rather than strangers? I think
parks and public spaces have a real
role in that, in terms of that possibility of contact. And, 'contact
theory' says that the more contact
you have with people who are different to you, the more likely you
are to become more tolerant and
even more accepting of policies
that promote diversity. In these
COVID-19 times, distancing, yes,
but let's not lose contact.
Stratton: There are examples of
where P&R has helped to address
food injustice and food deserts
through providing nutritious
meals for kids, farmers markets
and community gardens. What
should P&R professionals be
thinking about as they work
toward doing more in this space?
Agyeman: Taking a step back,
the goal on the personnel side has
to be diversification of the profession. That's the goal. In the meantime, how culturally competent
do our design, management and
programming staff feel? There are
some statistics that say 80 percent
of the population would love to
be more culturally competent, but
they don't know how to go about it.
And one of the things about us humans is we are afraid of offending
people. So, rather than attempt to
make contact across difference, we
shy back. That might be interpreted
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